Letters to the Editor (7/19/23)

Standing Ovation

Thank you, Seven Days, for publishing Erik Esckilsen’s exceptionally comprehensive and well-written piece on Bill Blachly and Unadilla Theatre [“Well Played,” July 12]. Having known Bill since the mid-1960s, and as a former Unadilla cast member, I thought I knew a lot about the subject, but there were interviews, history and insights in Esckilsen’s story that delighted and amazed me about the gifts this remarkable man has brought to central Vermont and beyond.

The journalism Seven Days brings us every week, exemplified by the Unadilla story, is, likewise, outstanding.

Andy Leader

North Middlesex

Location, Location, Location

[Re “Well Played,” July 12]: The article on Bill Blachly, Ann O’Brien and Unadilla Theatre was fabulous. Their theater is a gem. I would like to correct one error in the story. Unadilla is located in the town of Calais, not Marshfield. Calais has this situation where there are seven possible zip codes. The mailing address is Marshfield.

David Healy

Calais

‘Such Reader Engagement’

I loved your article about “third spaces” [“Green Mountain Meetups,” June 28], which play a critical role in fostering belonging and community. They decrease loneliness and better mental health, and the variety of your sampling was so interesting!

My “third space” is the Greater Burlington YMCA. I’d be challenged to find a place that’s more diverse on so many metrics: ability, age, race, income and more. And leadership and staff have worked hard and successfully to create a really welcoming and inclusive space that is super friendly. Thanks, as always, for lifting up stories of real Vermont and Vermonters!

For decades now, I have read Seven Days voraciously, starring items for family members and clipping reminders of local stores and upcoming events. The letters to the editor — often ones I wished I’d written (most recently about the climate, health and animal rights concerns of dairy) — show such reader engagement. Keep up the good work!

Valerie Wood-Lewis

Burlington

Party Foul

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure at the incendiary headline you chose to use: “While Vermont Mopped Up, Waitsfield Partied. What Explains the Town’s ‘Miracle’?” [July 14, online]. I understand the desire to write an eye-catching headline but don’t appreciate it being done at our expense.

The headline shows the Mad River Valley community in an exceedingly bad light, and it doesn’t reflect what the story is really about, which was how and why we dodged a bullet last week.

The MRV was deeply impacted by our experience during Tropical Storm Irene, and, because of it, many have stepped forward to volunteer help and donate to our neighbors. The editor of the Valley Reporter put it this way:

“It is impossible to go through what we have this week and not be traumatized for all those around us who are impacted. We all know exactly what it feels like. We all carry a deep and profound understanding of what flooding means. So, we will do what we did in 2011 — we’ll help each other. We’ll provide funds, elbow grease, hugs, and supplies commensurate with those that we (and all of Vermont) received from each other and those outside our state in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.”

This is exactly what the MRV has done.

The MRV did dodge a bullet, but don’t portray us as “partying” while neighboring towns suffered. It is unfortunate that Seven Days felt the need to write New York Post-esque headlines in an effort to sell papers. I expected so much more of Seven Days.

Eric Friedman

Moretown

Friedman is the executive director of the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce

Editor’s note: After readers complained, we changed the headline. The reference to “partied” was intended to reflect the town’s relief — not indifference toward its neighbors. Apologies for missing the mark.

Fireworks Hurt Wildlife

Karen Hanron is so right [“Celebratory Silence,” June 28]. Fireworks that are getting louder and longer each year have no place in a state with nature and wildlife living so close to urban areas. To wit: the moose that was tragically struck and killed by a car on Burlington’s Main Street, potentially due to being disoriented the day after the monstrous fireworks show. To wit: the lack of healthy moose in the Green Mountains, as they are stressed out by so many factors, including fireworks in the middle of winter hibernation to “celebrate” the new year in places like Bolton Valley. We need a study on the impacts of fireworks on Vermont wildlife.

We humans are smart enough to think of less impactful ways to feel celebratory and colorful and even loud. Let’s try some new ideas! A drone light show may be more expensive, but let’s try it — weigh the pros and cons. It could reduce the number of awful accidents that happen in fireworks factories in Europe and Asia, as well as the hundreds of millions of dollars U.S. companies send to China to purchase them from factories with dubious ethics.

Cecilia Polansky

Essex Junction

Remembering Canada

[Re Québec Issue, June 21]: Gone are the days when one could hop on the Amtrak heading north from Montpelier or Essex, arrive in Montréal by 11 a.m., do one’s business — or pleasure — and be back home by 11 p.m., all for a round-trip ticket of $14. One could (and perhaps still can) do Montréal “on the cheap” if one chose to walk or take the metro. It’s possible to absolutely submerge in galleries, street theater, book stalls, parks, the waterfront, and sidewalk vendors and buskers, and eat well for less on boulevard Saint-Laurent: Ethiopian, Japanese, Greek, Lebanese, Korean — your pick.

When I regularly took my Community College of Vermont art students north, we’d finish the day at Stash Café for a sumptuous meal of Polish food at student prices. Stash is still running, with live jazz piano. One does not need to spend a fortune to enjoy the city.

I have only one thing to add to [“Vive le Verbec: Indigenous Québec“]. Given that many Vermonters are of Abenaki heritage and may wish to see their own people in a joyous atmosphere, I recommend the Pow Wow Odanak on July 21, 22 and 23 this year. Odanak and Missisquoi were sister settlements since long before colonial times, and many Abenaki have strong ties to both.

Michael Cerulli Billingsley

Plainfield

A Dark Place

[Re “Vermont’s Relapse,” June 14]: I am a former resident of Burlington now living out of state. I still work seasonally in South Burlington.

Recently I took the bus from downtown Burlington to work on Friday and Saturday nights. Both nights the Downtown Transit Center was brimming with drug addicts, homeless people and various other signs of skid row. I was heckled by aggressive teens. Beside me, a man openly smoked methamphetamine. Another man was openly injecting himself with IV drugs. Many were drinking. Many had nodded off.

What has happened in Burlington? I live predominantly in New Orleans, a city filled with dangers, violence, drug and alcohol problems, etc. I have rarely seen such a scene on the streets of that city of almost 400,000 residents, a city in a state with notoriously mismanaged and inadequate social, economic, health and educational resources. I am not so sheltered that any of the circumstances came as a shock to me. I was shocked to find them in such abundance in downtown Burlington at 9 p.m.

It is an embarrassment to the city of Burlington and the state of Vermont.

It’s pretty dark in Burlington these days. It used to be a really good place to live. I loved it very much. It has become, so distinctly during the Mayor Miro Weinberger years, a place utterly unaffordable and yet rife with crime, drugs, poverty and desperation. Maybe Weinberger should go out and ride the bus around on a Saturday night.

Galen Cassidy Peria

Ticonderoga, NY & New Orleans, LA

French Living

[Re From the Publisher: “Oh, Canada!” June 21]: “Being surrounded by French signs and menus can be a little scary — a linguistic humiliation to which Americans aren’t accustomed.”

Canada has two official languages nationwide: English and French. Ninety percent of francophone Canadians live in Québec, where most live their entire lives in French and expect that others who choose to join them will assimilate, as I did. Québec is like France, where Americans are visitors and locals are at home.

Montréal is the most cosmopolitan North American city where francophones worldwide come to live in North America in French. Students in our local public schools also spoke a total of 68 other languages at home.

Montréal also is the most European North American city, where international culture created, produced, dubbed or subtitled in French is omnipresent.

Québec is where one lives linguistically and culturally as European and materially as American.

Howard Fairman

Putney

French 101

I loved your “first-ever” Québec Issue [June 21]! It was full of lots of useful information for those wanting to cross the border and visit la belle province. And for those who are intimidated by the supposed language barrier, I think our organization can be of some assistance.

I’m president of the Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region. We are a local chapter of the international Alliance Française, and, as such, we promote French language and culture in our area. We offer French classes for all levels, from absolute beginner through advanced French speakers. So if you would like to communicate with our northern neighbors, we can help. And if you are like Paula Routly and once spoke French, we can help you speak French again.

Even if you don’t speak French, AFLCR may have something for you. We offer events and activities that celebrate our region’s long French heritage: pétanque games, lecture series, social hours and more. If you liked the Québec Issue and want to learn more about Québec and les Québécois, check us out!

Dana Baron

Shelburne

Editor’s note: Since publication of the Québec Issue, Seven Days has recorded and posted an audio version of the language primer titled “Way to Say.” It includes proper French Canadian pronunciation of a number of useful words and terms.

Let Them Vote

[Re “Scott Vetoes Noncitizen Voting in Burlington, Allows Ranked-Choice Voting to Become Law,” May 29, online]: Personally, I believe the term “noncitizen voting” should be more appropriately referred to as “legal resident voting.” The system of voting currently known as “noncitizen voting” enables those who reside legally in a town or city — and are here with legal credentials (e.g., visas, etc.) but are not actually naturalized citizens — to vote on local issues.

Those residents pay taxes and therefore should, in my opinion, be entitled to vote. In fact, they should be allowed to vote in state and national elections. After all, wasn’t there a little war about that once, some time ago, involving tea being thrown into the harbor in Boston? Something about “taxation without representation”?

Lin Bootle

Montpelier

Gender Is Everywhere

[Re “Anti-Trans Activist to Speak at Vergennes Union High School,” June 15, online]: I am persistently bemused by parents such as Tara Ferf Jentink and Tonya Meacham who believe that by keeping discussions of gender identity out of schools, their kids will remain free of “ideologies” regarding gender and sexuality.

Do parents who hold this belief ever allow their kids to watch Disney movies, full of busty female protagonists pining away for oversize white knights on white horses? Are they able to effectively shield their children’s eyes from the hundreds of images that flood social media and TV daily, which ingrain the ideal that only white, skinny young bodies desiring the opposite sex are normal and acceptable?

Did none of them have a “gender reveal” party, emphatically assigning a color choice (pink or blue) to their child even before birth? Have they dressed their female-bodied children in pink and purple while keeping brown and blue clothing for their male-bodied children?

I highly doubt that the parents who are advocating for a closed-mouth policy when it comes to discussing gender identity at school are actually raising their kids in gender-free environments. What these parents and Walt Heyer are really after is the elimination of any expression of nonnormative gender and the imposition of ignorance of any difference on everyone else.

I would argue that only through education and promotion of the full acceptance of the wide spectrum of gender expression can we give our kids the freedom to grow into their full and joyous selves, free of harmful gender stereotypes and ideals that hurt everyone.

Rachel Daley

Charlotte

Don’t Rule Out Religious Orgs

Thanks for speaking up on the addiction epidemic and including voices of individuals struggling to survive that lifestyle on our streets [“Vermont’s Relapse,” June 14]. The “lifelong addict” language accepted in our community concerns me, as though real change is impossible. As a Burlington resident for more than 15 years, I notice hope is lacking in the medical hub-and-spoke system. Also, prescribed opioid use isn’t actual opioid recovery.

I used to be addicted to opioids. Now I’m six years sober, living joyfully with a new identity! No “maintenance” clinics or relapses — simply freed from that habit. Many of us are living transformed lives.

Amanda Bean, featured on your cover, is a beautiful girl with a kind, thoughtful personality. We met during an Ignite Church outreach at Burlington’s City Hall Park. Amanda encouraged me in my sobriety even as I was encouraging her to regain her own. She’s one of countless beautiful souls bound in addiction.

As community members, as readers, let’s consider additional means to help. Perhaps support the few local, often underfunded, often volunteer-operated Christian-based organizations providing loving community support and encouraging lasting change, self-worth and hope — like the Church at Prison, New Life Crew, Breaking Chains Christian Fellowship, First Step Recovery House, and Adult & Teen Challenge New England.

Many studies in scientific and substance-abuse journals exhibit efficacy of faith-based rehabilitation and lower relapse rates compared to secular facilities. Even if we hold differing spiritual beliefs, please let us not overlook a means of helping hurting lives and preventing needless deaths.

Amanda Tubbs

Burlington